Every time I get a script it's a matter of trying to know what I could do with it. I see colors, imagery. It has to have a smell. It's like falling in love. You can't give a reason why.

To be a good actor, you have to be very smart. But to be a great actor, you also have to have a streak of, 'I'm an idiot, a complete lunatic.'

I'm not regimented. I don't diet, and I exercise the way I want to.

My favorite thing to do is eat and eat well.

Choosing a role is very difficult. There's no way to have a strategy.

I love the camera; there's something very special and sensual about it, and I have a tendency to call it a he, like it was a man. But, unlike a man, a camera is accepting of everything I do.

I use myself for each part. Naturally, it's my body, it's my soul, it's my feelings. That's the only way I know how to work. I couldn't pretend.

Everyone is complicated one way or another. But it's interesting to dig into a complicated character, to try to find that within yourself.

In Chinese love stories the one who loves always starts by borrowing a book from the beloved.

We do not learn and what we call learning is only a process of recollection.

I'm just trying to understand what's around me as much as anyone else is, really. To draw a bead on a moving target.

I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can't say; I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.

Conscience and covetousness are never to be reconciled; like fire and water they always destroy each other, according to the predominancy of the element.

I just try to think of all the things that could go wrong so in that split second when it happens, maybe your body reacts in a way where it protects you just a little.

Just the knowledge that a good book is waiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier.

My father has passed away. He was African-American. My mother is white. So I was adopted by a couple that was of a similar dynamic as my biological parents.

I never really understood what was expected of me as a man, or how I was supposed to interact with women, but worse, with other guys. I did not relate to them.

Well, I wasn't going to tell anyone, but I've been seeing this really sweet guy for the past few weeks.